Hello, and welcome to Mythic Mind, where we pursue wisdom on the past between primary secondary worlds. I'm doctor Andrew Snyder, and I'm glad that you're here. Hey there, welcome back as we continue our Star Wars series as we discuss a new Hope now unfortunately, only not unfortunately, I mean, the good news is that Ian and David were able to join us. But the better news is that hopefully we'll be able to bring in even more members of our fellowship for next time when we get to the
Empire strikes back. Now, this was I think a useful conversation as we deal with a number of a number
of topics. Sorr we' we don't really have a clear agenda going into this other than just to talk about new Hope and what it means, what it means to us, what we believe it means more more generally speaking, more objectively speaking, I think that Star Wars is definitely especially when we're talking about the original series, it's the kind of thing that can be approached from a number of different angles, and I think that I like the way
that this conversation went. You're going to see that it is kind of kind of free flowing kind of I'm kind of unstructured, but I think that there's benefit in that as well, in taking a generalist kind of approach. But I do think that maybe once we finished the original series, I might do a solo deep dive into
kind of what Star Wars. How I would map out Star Wars existentially, how I map it out philosophically, especially in relation to the work of Joseph Campbell and even Carl Jung and even some of the great theologians and philosophers. I think that there's a lot to do there. But to do that, I feel like I need to I need to ride the rails here on my trains of
thought and kind of put some more things together. And so I'll probably provide something really structured by myself once we get through the trilogy, But for now, I think that these are very useful and very very just enriching, very fun conversations that we have in a less of a structured way. And one last comment before we jump into this conversation that after this episode, we are going
to be spinning off a third Mythic Mind podcast. So we already have this one, which is really our central hub. We recently began the Mythic Mind Games podcast, which focuses
on video games from a Christian humanities perspective. And now we're going to be spinning off the Mythic Mind Movies and Shows podcasts, which is where you'll be finding the rest of the Star Wars conversations after this, and so you can find the Empire Strikes Back on the Mythic Mind Movies and Shows podcast and that is scheduled to be available on June thirteenth, and so it's going to be alternating every other Friday, alternating with the Mythic Mind
Games podcast. If we get to the point where I'm closer to being fully funded, well maybe we can move things around. And eventually I would love to have weekly episodes of all these different podcasts playing at once, and I'll give you a reminder about that in next week's standard Mythic Mind podcast. But for now, it's going to get into the conversation that I had with David and Ian on a new Hope. All right, welcome back as
we continue our Star Wars series, smaller group here. We'll wrangle up some more next time, but appreciate Ian and David joining us again. Seeing Ian for the second time today after we talked for the Games podcast this morning on the Old Republic game. But today we're here to talk about a new hope. You know, we don't have it, or at least I don't have a super clear vision of kind of where we're going. But really we're just delving into you know, what is this movie about, fundamentally
to us or or more wide reaching. I mean, obviously this is the story that launched an entire franchise that continues today, continues to grow, continues to develop, although if Jordan were here, he would certainly say that it does not continue to grow and develop. But obviously there was something here and that the first movie when it first came out is kind of this pulpy sci fi almost has like a B movie kind of feel to it initially, but then with this this incredible success that it had,
you know, it just we just kept on going. I mean, we get these glorious things like the holiday special that you know, continue to keep it. Oh wait, sorry, it is kind of funny to be that because of the early popularity Star Wars, they had to brush that out to you know, trying to you know, keep the momentum going. Fortunately Star Wars kept going despite that attempt. But we'll we'll cover or at least I don't know if anyone else will be masochistic enough to join me, but eventually
we'll cover that in its own right. But back for New Hope, I mean, obviously we're doing very significant here. Lucas was doing something very significant here, and we're gonna get at least the attimpt to figure out what that is that he was getting at. And so, you know, maybe we'll just start by asking, you know, me and David, what is your you know, what is this experience, What is your experience with this movie? What in your estimation,
just broadly speaking, makes this a great movie? A great starts with the franchise, and then we can just pay the conversation wherever it naturally goes from there. David, you want to start us off?
Sure?
Yeah. I mentioned in our Kohor talk that I was three when this movie came out, and I remember with the family we we drove to a nearby town that was showing it to see it, and and then I mainly remember that the Tusken Raiders scared me when they popped up in front of Luke and scared him. But yeah, so I'm I'm a be a fair judge because I have so much nostalgia through my entire life that began
with this movie. But when you compare this just the quality of these movies to other science fiction but more more fantasy than science fiction, I would say we could talk about that later, but I would I would consider this fantasy and not really science fiction. But it just was so much better and seriously treated and well made than most similar fare from the nineteen seventies and earlier.
And I think it really caused a huge shift in the popular culture and more of a that everybody would be interested in it than just you know, like the Star Trek fans and things like that. That it gave it a broader appeal that allowed for a lot of the kind of movies that we saw coming after this. But I do think just the sort of Hero's journey in it is a great way to begin and draw everyone in, and just to put it in such a unique and interesting setting.
I've always loved it.
Yeah, I mean, obviously that Hero's Journey dynamic because something has often comes into Star Wars conversations with you know, Lucas himself citing you know, Campbell's Here with a Thousand Faces as a major inspiration, which is which very much deals with this idea of the hero's journey. In fact, I pulled I'm currently reading through the the Here with a Thousand Faces, and I pulled a couple of quotes here, and at one point he says, actually this was from
an interview that he did with with Bill Moyers. So he said, the adventure of the hero is the adventure of being alive, right, So the adventure of the hero is the adventure that we all should take, that we all have responsibility to take, to let go of where you came from in a way of hopefully gaining it back in the end, which is a very very Christian idea and definitely an idea that you see in Carl Jung, you see coming out in Campbell, and definitely idea you
see coming out in Lucas, that that Luke story is supposed to be everybody's story as they continue to put their life together, and that spans across the trilogy. So I'll try to limit myself to New Hope, but I do think that in addition to just the aesthetics of emerging sci fi with with fantasy, and I do agree it is first and foremost of fantasy, though it has the kind of sci fi aesthetics to it, that it's
really it's that that mix of genre. Most fundamentally, it's that it's that existential tale that I think that we can all relate to, or at least that we all should be able to relate to on some level, which gives that that staying power. It's before I go off to far here, Ian can tell us something about what makes us a good story to you or objectively, however you want to handle it.
Well. I saw this when I was about nine, and i'd read the novelization first. I think I mentioned previous podcasts. I was very much in the mindset that you should read the book before you watch the movie, and I didn't really understand what a novelization meant. So I read all the novelizations before I saw the movies. And it's difficult with these formative movies to see them as movies in the same way you see something that you experienced
and analyzed as an adult. And so for me, I rewatched the entire trilogy a couple months ago, and it was really interesting applying all the things I've learned in English and reading various film reviews and film textbooks, like how the film is constructed, the various techniques used to create the shots, the writing techniques used to build tension and paid off, just the way the film put together. And I'm still I'm still wrestling with that because a part of me is still that nine year old who
watched Star Wars and you know, I was Luke. I was in the trench with him in the X Wing, I was with him in the in the Death Star garbage compact. Like there's such a visceral connection you have when you see a movie at the right age, and you can really just immerse yourself in the world. I think if you look at other movies around the same time, in the same general genre, you have, of course, The
Last Starfighter. That one gets cited a lot. I of course watched that much much later as an adult, and so it is not fair because I can certainly see some wish fulfillment and immaturities and storytellings in a New Hope, but there's nothing, there's nothing comparable to how weak Last Starfighter is in terms of pure wish fulfillment and teen boy he plays video game becomes savior of the universe because video Game is actually alien plan to train him
to save the universe. Is Everything is way too convenient in Last Starfighter, whereas in Star Wars there's a few things that are convenient, But in general, I would say it feels like he sets up the rules of the world. For Lucas sets up the rules of the world at the beginning, and he doesn't create new powers or new technologies that solve the problems for our hero as he goes along. It's just here's the rules of the technology,
and our hero has to work within them. And I think that's the sign of stronger writing and why a new Hope has lasted, where stuff like Lest Starfighter might have a lot of nostologic value for people who saw it at the right age, but if you watch it as an adult, they don't think it holds up anywhere close.
I think that one thing that Lucas did really well here is that, you know, he talked about how he wanted the beginning of this story, that the saga to not be in the beginning. He wanted it to be let's just let's not spend time doing world building. I mean at least that will happen naturally, you know, as we tell the story. But it's first and foremost it's it's a human story. This is why the original trilogy is I think so much more compelling than say, the prequels.
And we've talked about this a little bit and in some of the other conversations, but that the original trilogy is very much a human story centered centered around Luke and obviously the characters around him, but especially in Luke his journey to reconcile with his the darkness in his past that he didn't even know about. Uh, you know, this idea of you have to redeem your father from the great from the underworld essentially, you know, from from the belly of the Whale to use Pinocchio or I
guess Jordan Peterson imagery there. But you know, then once you get to the prequels, we're dealing a lot more with the grand scale political angle. But I think that that's just another thing that makes this, I think, such a compelling story that it is very much it's a human story. I don't know, do you guys have any order to shoot off from here?
Well, I just on the issue of people arguing whether it's sci fi or fantasy, you know. Robert Heinlein said that he defined sci fi as realistic speculation about future events, which is not what Star Wars does at all. And I feel like Lucas tried to to stop that up front with the whole a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, which is how you would start a fairy tale.
And the way that he used, you.
Know, the circle wipes and some of the interesting transitions that he does. I feel like he was trying to throw back to like old movie theater serials like Flash Gordon, things like that. Like he he loved those kinds of things, and he was trying to have fun until that sort of a story. He wasn't trying to speculate about how humanity would react to.
You know, AI or the.
You know, there's just the existence of these robots in the Star Wars universe who are essentially slaves, and they don't really deal with that at all. I mean, if you you know, if you mentally put Star Wars in a medieval or a tolkien Esque sort of a setting, the droids would have to be slaves. I mean, basically, these slave traders come through, they come out and pick the ones they want and then they learn more about
what's going on in the outside world. That's a clever, a clever storytelling mechanic and way to bring Luke in.
I think I.
Think the opening and focusing on those droids is that was something nobody had ever really seen before. Like you have a guy wearing a full metal costume and basically a trash can doing all the acting for a pretty long sequence there until we meet Luke.
And that was.
Telling the story from the position of these lowly characters. That was something that Lucas took from the character Osawa film The Hidden Fortress. You know that he's kind of famously admitted that that's where he got some of these ideas that you tell it from the perspective of characters who aren't really the hero, and I think that really made for some interesting storytelling.
Yeah. I think there's also a sense of the spiritual, which I think makes it more human. A lot of I personally consider Star Wars more science fiction because of the aesthetics, but there's definitely a huge element of the fantasy, and I think that the force and the way it's connected to doing the right thing and fighting against evil and connected to a knightly or monastic tradition. I think it gives it a more there's more life in it
than something like Doune. Like Dune is incredibly rich and powerful, but it's so cynical and so atheistic. Every piece of religion is seen as manipulation and man made, whereas the Force is an objective reality. It is a thing that does stuff that we can see. You know, You've got your Hansul who's like, you know, give me a good blaster any day. But you know, obi Wan can teach Luke to see without his eyes and block blasser buls, and he can you know, use his own lightsaber to
defend people. Like the Force is real. And I think that's more interesting than you know, your voice of command caused by genetic manipulation in Dune, which again is not to say I think Dune is bad. I just think that there's a cynicism to don that's not present in the best of Star Wars, even something as you know, more gritty like and Or. There's a really great article by Hannah Long that just came out about how and Or points us back to the centrality of the family.
The mother, the father, the son and those relationships instead of just being real politic and manipulation and murder, there's there's love that is at the heart of our struggle for justice in a better world. So I think that a new Hope lays all those found foundations.
Yeah, to go on the idea of the fact that in Star Wars, obviously the Force is something real, whether people recognize her and not. And obviously it can be misused, or it can be bent by it is, or at least maybe maybe can be it can be misrelated to. Maybe that's even a better way of saying it than saying the Force itself is bent. But people misrelate to the Force and in so doing they themselves become bent.
To use some Lewis language there, but the fact that there is this this fundamental reality that everybody by nature has some access to. You know, you have your Force users who are the wizards of sorts, but everybody, by nature of being alive has a connection to this reality. Which I think that that is you know, a lot
of times these conversations I've referenced Augustine. I think that's a very Augustine kind of Christian platonic way of seeing things that underneath all of existence, underneath all of life is this fundamental reality, and that good and evil comes down to are you orienting yourself toward that reality or away from that reality? And as you relate or as you turn away from the reality, you're turning away from yourself, right,
you lose yourself to the shadow, so to speak. And it's at this point where we can very easily shift from the Augustinian language to the Jungian language, to the Campbell language, to the kind of things that really appealed to, to Star Wars, to Lucas as you put Star Wars together, and so as we followed that line of thought, I think that we are dealing with something real as portrayed
in a fictional world. Like I think this reality to the fiction, that the idea that we are all bound together by this reality that we decide how we relate.
To another quote to pull from from Campbell, when he says myths are public, dreams, dreams are private, and myths, I think that when we look at and Lewis actually says something very similar to this towards the end, until we have faces about how something about how the difference between dreams and reality is that wanted to experience individually once experience corporately, but nonetheless both can be real in
their own way. I think that Star Wars is that kind of public myth in that it's it's so gripping because we recognize there is reality to it, even if we don't recognize what that reality is. I think it's one of those things that just speaks so deeply to the human psyche because even as the force is real, it symbolically speaking stands for something real in the primary world. So I think it's an interesting point and something makes it so compelling and even too yea go ahead, David, Well.
When we have Han who doesn't believe in it and expressly says so, you know, but he he gradually comes around to it. I mean eventually it becomes unavoidable with some of the things I think he sees. Once you can see somebody move things with without touching them, I
think that will have an effect at some point. And like the guy in the meeting with Darth Vader who just basically taunts him and had been his sorcerer's ways and he just starts choking him from across the room, that that should give you pause for how you're talking about these forces that you don't understand, which I always thought was funny.
I also think that you have these these familial relationships kind of woven throughout. You've got Luke and his aunt and uncle explicitly, and then his longing for a father and obi Wan's We're not sure how much Luke is new at the time, but it's definitely false now a story of his father being a pilot and killed by Darth Vader and obi Wan kind of taking a father
or uncle or maybe grandfatherly role to Luke himself. There's a lot of human stuff that I think drags you into the characters is they're not just kind of atomized individuals wandering around. They've got connections to people, and they form new connections to people, reformed the connections to them as the characters as we're going on.
Yeah, And that's one of the values of telling such an archetypically driven story that it is so easy to make those relations. And you know, I can say that as I've been familiar with these stories as long as I can remember, I don't remember seeing a New Hope for the first time. I just I've always been familiar with it. But as i've gotten older, I relate to it in different ways. I mean, and going a little
bit beyond a new hope. Since becoming a father, I relate to that Luke Vader connection or the redemption of the father by the son, like I connected that in a new way, not that my father is like Darth Vader, but at the same time, I just the point is that because these things are so real, I feel like as you become more real through age and through experience, they themselves become more real to you. And I think that that family angle is definitely a significant one for me.
And by the way, you mentioned his first encounters with with obi Wan at least as their first encounters in the movie, and to put another notion that the fantasy tally here, you know, Lucas does readily admit that obi Wan is very largely influenced by Gandolf. That that you know, of course I know him. He's me like that. That's a very Gandolphian way of talking. You consider how he talks to Bilbo, so he was just like the way that he introduces himself to us, you know, through through Luke.
It's very much influenced by by Gandolf.
There and on whether or not Lucas. I feel like Lucas definitely was just keeping it under his hat that he intended for Vader to be his father, didn't didn't you say something, Andrew?
Thank you?
I saw it on Twitter that that Vader actually means father.
And yeah, there's some contention about this in that Lucas makes that claim, but apparently linguistically it's a little bit dubious at least, but it might go in that direction, and Lucas certainly suggests that it does.
Okay, well, I feel like, particularly when Aunt Beru is talking to Uncle Owhen after Luke storms off and says, you know, he's just got too much of his father in him, and then Uncle Owen says, that's what I'm afraid of. I mean, he might as well, in my opinion, just like wink at the camera at that point, because it seems like, once you start putting it all together, that that was planned. Now, Lea being his sister not
the plan, but I don't. I think he was definitely into the I think it was during the development of Return of the Jedi when he needed something for Vader to say to make Luke angry, and that's when he came up with that connection, so I think that was a late edition. But yeah, as a child, not understanding how stories are written and the purpose of why they're made, you know, to me, I never thought to critique any of this. Is like, this is what the story is,
and I'm just going to consume it. You know, I really spent three years between six and nine wondering if Darth Vader was lying to Luke just to mess with him. But obviously, as an adult, you watch it and you have no question that, oh, what an interesting twist. You don't think that the next movie's going to come around
and like, I was just messing with you. But for a kid, that's it is almost unfathomable that this villain that I had been so scared of as a child he actually be the main character's father.
But I think.
That's one of the really valuable points of the story.
And I don't want to drag the conversations down too much, but I have to say the way The Last Jedi and then The Rise of Skywalker handled the same revelation about Ray, where they explicitly contradict each other for no good reason. I'm just even if you like one or the other. You can't like both because they contradict each other. So there's no there's no upside to the way they wrote that revelation. Unfortunately, and I say this as someone
I like Daisy Ridley. I think Ray has plenty of potential. The character has written is weak.
Yeah, and they spent the second movie convincing you and her that, hey, there's nothing special about you, but that's what's special about you. Anybody can do this, and then in the third movie it was but actually, no, that wasn't right. There really is something very special about Yeah.
It's it's a mess.
Yeah. I mean, obviously Lucas he makes some tweaks along the way. I mean, I assume wouldn't have had Luke or vice versa, you know, if you knew how things going to play out. But obviously once you get to the sequel trilogy, they're just completely changing the fundamental message of like what they're trying to accomplish from movie to movie. It's it's it's absolute mess, right.
Oh.
I do like to think, I know, I know the Luke Laya thing was just Lucas not having his mind,
not not figuring this out yet that they're related. But I do I like to think that this is a nod to the Nordic stories of like there there are some some Nordic tales of like accidental incessuous relationships between a hero and his sister, Like there's some forgetfulness situation going on, like some some enchantment, some cover up, some disguise where this unwittingly happens, which I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm glad that Lucas didn't push that ankle
too hard. I don't need to see that on the screen. But at the same time, I'd like to think that that that's some kind of nod to the old great stories. But I know that's just my own Headgamon.
If we ever get Turned turn Bar.
Adapted exactly, yeah, that Turnturnbar stuff is I mean, that's straight Volsung saga topics there.
Well, h I do I love you know obviously, Luke he wants, he wants to join the rebellion, he wants to go out and do something and make a difference in his family's just trying to keep him close. I think a lot of people can relate to those kinds of things of their parents trying to to have them play it safe when they want to do something more adventurous, and especially as a little kid, that that appeals to you.
You know, grown ups don't get it. I want to get into this.
But as he's learning about the Force and his father, and obviously the music plays a big part of it. But just the way when he's in the trench and he hears Obi Wan telling him to just listen to the Force and he turns off his equipment. Just that the rejection of the technology that is supposed to make your job simple, which is clearly failing, and then just using the Force and you know, calming his mind I always thought was a great moment.
Interestingly, when I was in high school, I went through a curriculum called world Views of the Western World by David Quine. And I'll say a lot of good things for mister Quinn's selection of literature. He basically had me read the entirety of the Western Cannon in a digestible way for high schooler. But his take on Star Wars
was very negative. And he still goes on these long rants about how Star Wars versus anti Christian and anti everything, and he gets really upset about how Luke constantly rejects droids and rationality, and I think that I can definitely see how that can go too far. I would say that definitely goes too far in in the Disney movies, where you do have a lot of plans that literally make no sense and only work because the writers force
them to work, which is lazy writing. But I think that, as I said when I was earlier talking about how Star Wars are constructed, Lucas sets up the world. He doesn't break rules to make it work just for narrative convenience. I would say that, you know, as a Christian, there's no way we can control all the variables of what
we're doing because we just have our limited perspective. And I think that we can look at him turning off his targeting computer as being similar to a Christian having to say, I trust in God, who has a plan for all of us, and I will do my part. You know, Luke Luke isn't closing his eyes. Luke talks about how he used to, you know, hit womprats which were the same size as the target from his thing, so it's not like it's not something he's done before.
He has skills, but he also knows that there has to be an element of faith in the spiritual reality of the universe. And I think that's not the same as an existential leap of faith. I think it is a trusting in a good that has a tangible reality that we know about it.
Yeah, and even that, you know, Kirkgardian leap of faith, and you know, the leap of faith idea is quintessentially connected with with Kirkeguard. And even for kirke Guard, he's not nearly the radical subjectivists people think he is when you really get down to it end of the day, he actually he himself is very august Indian, He very much. And even Augustine recognized that even the faith that we have is not built upon our reason, but we actually
reason out of our faith. You know, that is the almost consistently at least out of the major thinkers who's to the test of time. That is the pre modern Christian way of approaching faith and reason. That reason comes out of faith. Faith doesn't come out of reason. Not to say that our faith is irrational, but it is just that is the grounding for reason, and for that reason,
it is beyond reason. You know, even Plato moves in this direction when he says that, like, if we say that reason is good along with justice and you know, whatever else we want to throw in there. If we say that reason is good, then whatever goodness is is this thing that reason participates in. The stands above and beyond reason. That's why it is in his allegory of the case, the sun is the good, the sun, which you don't see by looking at you see as you
see by the sun. That's how you better understand what it is. If you stare the sun, you go blind. So why even like the most rationalistic medievals you're Thomas Aquinas or whoever, once you get to the endpoint of reason, which is another way of saying, once you get to the foundation of reasons kind of the same thing the top and the bottom, you start to approach something that your reason can't handle. And that's actually what gives reason
a place. And say, within the very traditional orthodox Christian tradition, there is this idea that reason is not ultimate, that reason stems from and returns back to that which is ultimate. And so I would definitely reject the framing that star Wars is antithetical to Christianity because it stresses something that
is real and true beyond reason. Now, obviously when Star Wars, especially in the later editions, starts to kind of move in the direction of maybe reason itself is something bad, like, Okay, that's a problem, but the Christians have no problem saying that reason is an ultimate.
My education is not in philosophy or theology, although I've studied a lot of both on my own. I have a degree in fine art, and I work as a videographer and video producer, so a lot of my insights on film and things like that are about, you know, the way films are made and the pacing of story and things like that, which, by the way, in I find it really fascinating that you read the books of these films before.
You saw them.
That there cannot be but a handful of people that could say that in the whole world. That is such an interesting way to come at the Star Wars films. I can't even imagine what it would be like to have read the book before seeing these movies.
That's pretty incredible.
I'm curious as an editor. There's a lot of controversy these days from a feminist perspective because George Lucas's wife at the time Marcia Lucas edited the first film, and I'm wondering, are there moments that you can point out from your own professional and artistic experience that really highlight the craft of Marcia Lucas and George collaborating together.
I didn't even know that about her. That's fascinating. I love the pacing of older movies that I think as attention spans have shortened, that we've lost. I was talking to somebody about that today, you know how like even in the nineties, the first Jurassic Park movie, there's no action. It's like all talking the entire first half of the movie.
But that's how you build the tension. You know, you start, you may start with some action, and then you step back and you slowly build and tell the story as you go along, so that we come along with it and it's not just a constant bombardment. Like the Marvel cinematic universe has become where I think they've been enjoyable movies, But I can't really tell you much of anything that happened in any of them since the first Avengers film,
Like it's all a blur from there for me. But yeah, I some of the things that I've noticed are that things that they added back in that they shouldn't have, Like adding job of the Hut back in to the film. I think that's a poor choice because it's better for him to be a name that we're speculating about until that comes to a head in the third movie and then we finally meet this villain that we've been hearing about that Han has been trying to stay one step
ahead of through these three films. Also, just from a pacing perspective, a lot of the lines are recycled from the conversation that Han has with Greeto because they would never have put both of those in. They would have done one or the other, but because they decided to add those in later, then it just it drags the plot down for no real reason. So I feel like
the original edit there especially works a lot better. And by the way, I'll say on Jordan's behalf, of course, Han shot first, because you're not a bad guy for shooting someone who is pointing a gun at you and has just told you that they're going to shoot you, right, You don't have to let them shoot first and hope they miss. That doesn't even make any sense, But anyway, is.
There anybody who ever argues that Greeto shot first.
I mean, I will defend the shooting of Greeto because I do. I do think it makes it more exciting if there's two shots happening.
I think that.
Unfortunately, the special effects that they had him shoot, he's like shooting way over here, so it kind of was the effect. I don't think it was necessary to change it all, but I don't get mad about it.
Yeah, they've redone it like three times. They keep trying to improve it a little bit every time, at.
Least most recent. What I actually do get mad about because they have Grido's say, this really weird alien phrasem clunky. It's just so out of place from before. It just that what I do think is just why did you add that extra sound?
Oh man?
Well, and of course in the job of the Hut scene. Originally it was just some guy, uh, and then in nineteen ninety seven for the theatrical re release, it was really bad special effect computer graphic job of the Hut.
And they keep redoing that.
But yeah, some of that I think was just so they could come up with a reason to have you come to the theater again.
I've heard also there's there was a bitter conflict between Lucas and some of the the actors, and he didn't he didn't necessarily want to have them be included in some of the residuals, just because of how bitter some of those conflicts got.
Wow.
Well, there was one funny edit that I recently learned about that I don't think most people have noticed, but and I think it's only in the most recent changes that they made. But when Grandma of Tarkin is standing there waiting for the death Star to explode, he has this one long hair sticking off the side of his head that is just backlit by by studio lighting, and it was always really obvious, and that hair is gone.
Now.
I can't believe that they went to the trouble of doing that, but they they actually did.
Yeah. I don't have any great philosophical commentary on that, however, it is it is interesting the things that they decided to nitpick on for these various edit touched. I don't know, I don't know what those rooms look like A conversations.
Yeah, and of course some of the edits were the limitations of nineteen seventy seven. I do think changes in the in the death start fight and to make most size Lee look more heavily populated. That's all fine, and that sort of makes sense. I mean, they did the same sort of things with later Blade Runner releases. It's just we would have done this at the time had we had the capabilities.
Those kinds of edit makes sense.
But if there was something that cut that they cut and it hit the editing room floor, I think they should have left it there.
But I'd come around to agree completely with you on the Java seeing, you know, as a little kid seeing it in theaters, I was like, Oh, it's Jaba, It's so cool. But now I'm just like, kind of they cut him out and see stuff on the time, and as you say, the dialogue is completely recycled. Every piece of information you get there was in the Greed conversation, which already had the threat of life and death there. So it doesn't increase stakes, it does slow the action down.
I agree with you on that one.
Yeah.
In in the nineties, a lot, you know, they were trying to make movies to be no longer than two hours and five minutes so that you could fit it on one VHS tape for the rental, And so during those years. Sometimes there would later be like a DVD release that had some scenes put back in. They're like, oh wow, it's a shame that those had gotten cut. But nowadays when you see deleted scenes, it's usually yeah, I understand why you cut that, because it just slowed
the story down. Because we can make movies as long as we want at this.
Point, often to our detriment. I feel like we really need to get back to that. Are like sitting three hours of the theater. When I recently watched Mission Impossible, that's a long time to sit.
Guys, I heard that was a long one.
M I don't know. I mean, for me, it depends on what I'm watching. If we're dealing with something particularly enchanting, then I know I like a long movie. I like the kind of movie that I don't want to end. Yeah, I think of the best of Star Wars. I think of Lord of the Rings. I mean a lot of times.
I just recently came across, unfortunately, this Matt Walsh radio where he's ranting about the length of the Return of the Game, and I just entirely disagree with that that you know, I want Jackson to add more endings to the game. I argue there's not enough endings there exactly, we I mean, include scouring at least, just give us a whole movie on the scouring. I mean, if you can make three movies out of the Hobbit, give us
a whole movie on the Scouring. And by the way, with the Tolkien connection, you know, to be fair to the changes that Lucas made over time, I mean, Tolkien made pretty substantial changes to his own books over time. So I mean, if you can do that literature, then I mean, I guess it's a possibility in movies, even if we questioned some of those changes. And I think that Lucas has said something to that effect that he doesn't consider a movie to be done just because it's been released.
Yeah, I don't know.
To me, it feels like an artist going into the gallery and changing their painting that's been on display for years. It just seems a little odd. But yeah, I do love the extended Lord of the Rings movies and things like that, And to slightly tie Lord of the Rings in with a New Hope, you know, the movie Willow is really kind of like a an off brand Middle Earth with all of the same character types. As a New Hope stuck in it in a very similar story.
I always enjoyed it as a kid, but it's it is funny just how much of a kind of a derivative mishmash that movie seems. I know we're not here to talk about Willow, but we probably will never have a show where we talk about Willow. So unless we're going to go through all the Lucas movies, we can do Howard to Duck after this if we want so.
Yeah, I'll let you leave that one. Well, we'll see see how my schedule pans out. Well, I don't know any any other thoughts or any any of the questions topics you think or worth engaging with here.
Well, something I am i'm curious about, kind of as a last question as we're thinking about it, when Luke is looking at the twin suns and you can feel his longing to leave, are there any specific Christian thoughts you have about the desire of a young man or a young woman. But I mean, Luke is obviously a
young man wanting to leave his place of birth. Like that's that's a powerful scene visually and musically, but it strikes me, and it is so often repeated and so often referred to that there must be some deeper spiritual reality being referred to. What are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, I think that's he's longing for, that that movement away from adolescence, where there is that movement away from your parents, that that movement away from the sense of home, so that way you can go off into the unknown and in large sense discover who it is that you truly are. That you know, you always take some of home with you, I mean, for better or worse, depending
on what that means for you. But it's when you are separated from that influence that is upon you an adolescence, when you really become yourself, when you become when you realize what it is that you've embodied and what new things you're going to pick up along the way in the wilderness. And so I think it's that long that everybody has to discover who they are apart from their parents,
right apart from their home situation. And I think that that is an important part of the hero's journey, that we have to go off and to some extent create ourselves at the very least discover who it is that we actually are. And I think that's the longing that
we all have. And I think that one problem is that in our culture today is that we very much have this delayed movement away from adolescents where you know, I teach college students and most of them still think that they're kids, despite the fact that they're very obviously adults'.
But that just creates all kinds of I think, psychological problems, anxieties, frustrations, lack of responsibility, the kind of responsibility that people yearn for once they recognize is theirs to be had, and so there's part of us that always yearns to, you know, leave tattoo, eat and jump in the spaceship and go explore the galaxy. But when that gets thwarted longer than it should, it leads to greater frustration and greater anxiety, even if you yourself might be the one thwarting it.
Yeah, and safety at the expense.
Of well, I mean, he realized that he wants to fight the empire. He knows that there's an oppressive regime there, and whatever his motives are for doing that, our desire to protect our kids and shelter them is another thing that's kind of depicted there. And you see that some more in the also polarizing Obi Wan series, which I
largely actually enjoyed that myself. But yeah, we we want to protect our kids, but they that is what keeps them children, you know, like when they once they have reached the age where they need to accept the responsibility.
That that they have as adults. Yeah, but that's.
As a kid you identify with. Luke, what's your parent you identify with it's his uncle an.
Yeah. Yeah, just stay here, I'll poy some blue milk and keep you safe well while we harvest moisture from the air. Apparently, is that all they do? I don't know.
The good question of the economy of TA makes no sense at all.
Yeah, I've never quite understood what it is that they're barbing.
I read the whole Kenobi novel, which is set entirely on tatooed John Jackson Billity did his darkness to explain the economy, and I'm sitting here thinking, can't it is water? That was my last question, and I think that both you and David really gave it a good whack.
I'll try to come up with more philosophically leading questions in the future, and you.
Know, or you can, or you can photography.
Okay, yeah, well with the Empire strikes Back cinematically in every way, I think Empire Strikes Back is a masterpiece.
So I look forward to talking about that.
Yeah, absolutely, I'll look forward to that as well, and we'll make sure we we wrangle in some of the others as well.
Well.
Then we'll go ahead and wrap there. Thanks for joining us, and next time we'll get into the Empire strikes Back. Until then, the forced be with you, all right, Thanks
for listening. And again, if you want to continue with us in the Star Wars series, then for one, you can go ahead and check out the Mythic Mind Games podcast already as we continue some of our Nights of the Old Republic conversations, but also we'll be getting to the Empire Strikes Back on the Mythic Mind Movies and Shows podcast, which will be available on the thirteenth of June, or maybe I'll put an intro episode out sooner rather
than later. And so if you want to keep up with that information, make sure you follow me on Twitter at Andrew and Snyder or betri Yette. You can join our Patreon right go over to patreon dot com. Slash Mythic Mind and become an insider and get in on some of these ground level conversations that are shaping where
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com slash Mythic Mind. And as a reminder, if you become an annual Tier three patron, you also get access to all of my courses that begin within your term, So right now that would include Plato Stows until we had Faces, the Elder Scrolls in philosophy, and the Summer Alion, which will happened at the beginning of twenty twenty six. But that's it for now and until next time, God's feed I have always, at least ever since I can remember, had a kind of longing for death. It was when
I was happiest that I longed most. It was on happy days when we were up in the hills, the three of us, with the wind and the sunshine, where you couldn't see Gloam or the palace do you remember the color and the smell, and looking across at the gray mountain in the distance, And because it was so beautiful, it set me longing, always longing somewhere else there must be more of it. Everything seemed to be saying, Psyche, come, but I couldn't come, and I didn't know where I
was to come to. It almost hurt me. I felt like a bird in a cage when the other birds of its kind are flying home. And now I will make answer to you, oh my judges, and show that he who has lived as a true philosopher has reason to be of good cheer when he is about to die, that after death he may hope to receive the greatest good in the other world. For I deem that the true disciple of philosophy is likely to be misunderstood by other men. They do not perceive that he is ever
pursuing death and dying. And if this is true, why, having had the desire of death all his life long, should he regret the arrival of that which he has
always been pursuing and desiring. The longing of Plato and the control of the Stoics pervades Louis's retelling of the Cupid and psyche myth until we have Faces With this incredible novel, which he believed to be his best, Lewis demonstrates the tensions and in an ancient thought, and even more significantly, the limits of rational philosophy, which can only
go as deep as the foxes can dig. Beyond that, under that and providing the life of that thought, we find the dark and holy places that blind our faculties of reason. What then, shall we do? This is a topic that we will explore after first surveying some important philosophical contributions in the ancient world that have had some
significant bearing on Lewis's great novel. To this end, we will begin with Plato's Phato, which discusses the immortality of the soul and what those who love wisdom might expect in the life to come. And then we'll spend four weeks with some of the great stoics, including Epictetus, Emperor, Marcus, Aurelius,
and Seneca. Finally, we will turn our attention to till we have Faces for the final two weeks with original content, and so this will not be the same as what you may have seen in the fiction and philosophy of C. S. Lewis course. Each week of this eight week study will include readings from primary sources that will be provided as PDFs. Although these are all texts that belong in your personal library.
You'll be provided with recommendations for secondary readings. You'll have recorded presentations for you to watch at your leisure, ongoing discord chats, and weekly live meetings to discuss the readings enrolled today by going to patreon dot com slash Mythic Mind and checking out the job. Or you can gain access to all courses, past, present, and future this year by purchasing a Tier three annual subscription. I hope to see you there.